Thanks everyone who pitched in to help me. I went back to some code I wrote a 
while back that was a lot cleaner (for postal api's) and started from scratch 
this seems to work just fine. This does not however end the issue as I have 
the same problem on client side code and suspect it has to do more with which 
xml object versions are being used. Anyway for anyone who may have looked at 
this and wanted to know the solution here it is

Response.Buffer = True
Response.charset = "utf-8"

strXMLOut="<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""utf-8""?>" &_
"<rdf:RDF" &_
"        xmlns:rdf = ""http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"" " &_
"        xmlns:dc  = ""http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"" " &_
"        xmlns:mq  = ""http://musicbrainz.org/mm/mq-1.1#"" " &_
"        xmlns:mm  = ""http://musicbrainz.org/mm/mm-2.1#"">" &_
"<mq:FindArtist>" &_
"  <mq:depth>4</mq:depth>" &_
"  <mq:artistName>Portishead</mq:artistName>" &_
"</mq:FindArtist>" &_
"</rdf:RDF>"

strUrl = "http://www.musicbrainz.org/cgi-bin/mq_2_1.pl"

strXSLPath = Server.MapPath("music.xsl")

Set xmlDoc = Server.CreateObject("MSXML.DOMDocument")
Set xmlhttp = Server.CreateObject("Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP.3.0")  
xmlhttp.open "POST", strUrl, false 
xmlhttp.send strXMLOut 

strXMLReturn = xmlhttp.responseText
xmlDoc.validateOnParse = False
xmlDoc.loadXML(strXMLReturn)

Set xmlhttp = Nothing

'Load the XML.
Set source = Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument.3.0")
source.async = false
source.resolveExternals = false
source.load(xmlDoc)

'Load the XSLT.
Set style = Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument.3.0")
style.async = false
style.resolveExternals = false
style.load(strXSLPath)
strOutPut = source.transformNode(style)

Response.Write strOutPut

Set xmlDoc = Nothing
Set source = Nothing
Set style = Nothing

"Jason Burr" wrote:

> I am trying to use an xsl page to transform an rdf result set from 
> musicbrainz and I can't get anything at all to return I have tried every way 
> I can think of to access the relevant nodes but nothing seems to work. I have 
> seen a couple of examples of xslt being used with an rdf rss news feed but 
> applying the same basic code I haven't been able to get it to work. I am 
> posting a snippet of the rdf/xml returned and some of the approaches I have 
> taken (again none of which have worked).
> 
> Here is the reduced rdf/xml
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf = "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
>          xmlns:dc  = "http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
>          xmlns:mq  = "http://musicbrainz.org/mm/mq-1.1#"
>          xmlns:mm  = "http://musicbrainz.org/mm/mm-2.1#"
>          xmlns:az  = "http://www.amazon.com/gp/aws/landing.html#">
>   <mq:Result>
>     <mq:status>OK</mq:status>
>     <mm:artistList>
>       <rdf:Bag>
>         <rdf:li 
> rdf:resource="http://musicbrainz.org/artist/65314b12-0e08-43fa-ba33-baaa7b874c15"/>
>       </rdf:Bag>
>     </mm:artistList>
> 
>   </mq:Result>
>   <mm:Artist 
> rdf:about="http://musicbrainz.org/artist/65314b12-0e08-43fa-ba33-baaa7b874c15">
>     <dc:title>Leonard Cohen</dc:title>
>     <mm:sortName>Cohen, Leonard</mm:sortName>
>     <mm:albumList>
>       <rdf:Bag>
>         <rdf:li 
> rdf:resource="http://musicbrainz.org/album/19100fb3-2b9f-4322-a165-fa72c18301da"/>
>         <rdf:li 
> rdf:resource="http://musicbrainz.org/album/e1cbba89-c1f3-4dd4-9cce-8c05cd2f8ce8"/>
>        </rdf:Bag>
>     </mm:albumList>
>   </mm:Artist>
>   <mm:Album 
> rdf:about="http://musicbrainz.org/album/19100fb3-2b9f-4322-a165-fa72c18301da">
>     <dc:title>The Best of Leonard Cohen (disc 2)</dc:title>
>     <dc:creator 
> rdf:resource="http://musicbrainz.org/artist/65314b12-0e08-43fa-ba33-baaa7b874c15"/>
>     <mm:releaseType 
> rdf:resource="http://musicbrainz.org/mm/mm-2.1#TypeCompilation"/>
>     <mm:releaseStatus 
> rdf:resource="http://musicbrainz.org/mm/mm-2.1#StatusOfficial"/>
>     <az:Asin>B0000024TT</az:Asin>
>   </mm:Album>
> 
>   <mm:Album 
> rdf:about="http://musicbrainz.org/album/e1cbba89-c1f3-4dd4-9cce-8c05cd2f8ce8">
>     <dc:title>Diamonds in the Mine Field</dc:title>
>     <dc:creator 
> rdf:resource="http://musicbrainz.org/artist/65314b12-0e08-43fa-ba33-baaa7b874c15"/>
>     <mm:releaseType rdf:resource="http://musicbrainz.org/mm/mm-2.1#TypeLive"/>
>     <mm:releaseStatus 
> rdf:resource="http://musicbrainz.org/mm/mm-2.1#StatusBootleg"/>
>   </mm:Album>
> 
> </rdf:RDF>
> 
> Here are some of the approaches I have taken
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
> 							xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" 
> 							xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" 
> 							xmlns:mq="http://musicbrainz.org/mm/mq-1.1#" 
> 							xmlns:mm="http://musicbrainz.org/mm/mm-2.1#" 
> 							xmlns:az="http://www.amazon.com/gp/aws/landing.html#"
> 							exclude-result-prefixes="rdf dc mq mm az">
> <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" method="html"/>
> <xsl:template match="/rdf:RDF">
> 
>   <for-each select="mm:Album">
>     <value-of select="dc:title"/>
>   </for-each>
> 
> </xsl:template>
> </xsl:stylesheet>
> 
> I also tried without the exclude and with only getting rdf: namespace items 
> and with match on / and with select as "/rdf:RDF/mm:Album/dc:title" etc... ad 
> nausium.
> 
> Is there something I am missing here? Is this just not possible to do?